


Shot Through The Heart (And You're To Blame)

by GalaxyAqua



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Disaster Bi Saihara, F/M, I didn't tag the ships because they are onesided and fleeting, M/M, Major V3 Spoilers, SOS (Save Our Saiharas), Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 06:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17319818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyAqua/pseuds/GalaxyAqua
Summary: He loves every killer before they die.(Saihara’s unrequited crushes on every trial’s culprit and how he deals with the aftermath.)





	Shot Through The Heart (And You're To Blame)

**Author's Note:**

> 2019: hello it's 20biteen, what are you going to write this year  
> me, looking at this fic, knowing that the very concept is terrible:  
> also me: this one
> 
> if you got this far, here's a reminder that this fic will contain all of the following (onesided): saihara/akamatsu, saihara/toujou, saihara/shinguuji, saihara/gokuhara, saihara/momota, saihara/shirogane. thank you!

 

Akamatsu is the first.

“Sai-ha-ra-kun,” she sounds out after he tells her his name, all a pleasant exploration of sounds and the way they feel. She’s a musician, so it’s only natural, but even her voice follows a melody of its own, playful and curious.

In response, he nods at her in affirmation and tries not to fidget too much. He feels inadequate already. He hopes she can’t tell.

She grins so naturally it puts his mind quickly at ease though, and there’s a little bounce to her step, a little victorious pump of her fists. “Alright, Saihara-kun! It’s nice to meet you.”

“Ah… yeah, you, too,” He nods again, a quiet return of the sentiment, not sure of how else to react. She’s unlike anyone he’s ever met before.

“You know, Saihara-kun, I think you and I are going to make a great team,” Her smile is genuine and bright as she hikes her backpack higher on her shoulders, determination in the straightening of her spine and the softening of her pretty eyes. “Let’s work together and get out of here, okay?”

Of course, Akamatsu is the first.

God, Akamatsu is so sweet and encouraging and kind, she had to have been the first.

(He can barely look at her in the beginning, she is simply so rich in liveliness, confidence and vivacity and he’s gone, gone, gone–)

She is radiant, even down to the colors she wears – her soft sweater vest, her music patterned skirt – all pastel bright against the gloomy, overgrown backdrop. Saihara follows her because he’s drawn to her radiance. She’s like a beacon of light and a flickering spark of hope in this terribly dreary place, all run-of-the-mill expressions but the truth nonetheless.

“Even when times get hard, we can’t give up. We have to work together.” Akamatsu declares to the others, and she’s bold, so much bolder than Saihara will ever be. “This isn’t over until we say it’s over. That’s why, we have to keep fighting until the end.”

He might be hiding behind her. It doesn’t bother him. He admires her determination and might. He admires her because it’s her. Because of who she is.

Akamatsu Kaede, a star shining bright.

Beautiful, shining and golden, and her smile – oh, he’s so, so weak for that smile. It makes him feel as though everything will turn out alright, and there’s no doubt to be had. All it takes is to have faith. Everything will be fine. Well and good and solid as the steps she takes, Akamatsu is glory and warmth and loveliness and Saihara is gone for her.

He’s adored her from the moment they met.

(Akamatsu is so much. He thinks she might be an angel.)

He likes Akamatsu so much because she’s always looking forward, always headstrong and unwavering, and she’s a bubbly distraction from the dread that’s been pooling in Saihara’s gut the moment he fell out of that classroom locker.

She’s witty, she’s confident, she’s gorgeous, she’s everything he wants to be and everything he thinks he could ever need.

They walk the academy together and Saihara can’t help it — even in a place like this that breeds skepticism, he trusts her. Only her. He knows she has the strength he does not, knows she is always facing forward and knows that if anyone is going to save them, it’s Akamatsu, Akamatsu, Akamatsu.

Sweet Akamatsu. Cheerful Akamatsu. Akamatsu with her bouncy blonde hair and her ever-confident gait. She is loving. She is beautiful. Funny, enthusiastic, supportive.

Saihara feels himself getting swept away with it all.

His shyness doesn’t help. She’s skipping ahead while he fumbles and yet there’s a part of that he finds endearing, too.

He likes her discreetly. Secretly. Glances at her hands when she’s not looking, those perfect pretty pianist hands that he just wants to hold in his own but he’d never muster the courage.

(Those hands for holding strength and bravery and fortitude. Strength and bravery and fortitude. She puts those hands over his and he almost holds them back, but doesn’t feel himself deserving of it yet.)

He’d like to think that their hands would fit together nicely, fingers interlacing, palm against palm, but it isn’t a hypothesis he has the proper opportunity to test. He has to calculate the probabilities and the meanings behind it all, and right now, no matter how much he wants to ask her to stay by his side, the most he can do is offer her a plan to serve her cause.

They will get out, that is Akamatsu’s word.

He believes her.

There are more important things to worry about than holding hands, and when they get out, he might just ask her if he can hold it, even for a little while.

He imagines her smile. So confident, so true.

Her lovely, lovely smile. So comforting and warm.

So hard to accuse.

(Have strength. Have bravery. Have fortitude.)

He can’t say a word when he realizes the truth.

His voice leaves him dry. He doesn’t know if he’s consciously breathing. Everyone is talking over each other. He trembles at his stand, fists clenching. Even gripping at the fabric of his jacket, it feels so surreal.

There’s no way. There’s not a chance. There is no possible way.

And yet, it’s the only possible way.

Saihara can’t breathe.

They’re all pointing at him and it’s so loud in his mind, it’s all just pounding, and pounding and he wants to cry, he doesn’t know what to do, and GOD WHY IS IT AKAMATSU, WHY COULDN’T IT HAVE BEEN ANYONE ELSE, WHY DID HE EVER BELIEVE THAT SHE COULD DO NO WRONG, HOW CAN HE CALL HIMSELF A DETECTIVE IF IT WAS HIS FAULT THAT AMAMI GOT KILLED AND THE KILLER HAD BEEN RIGHT BY HIS SIDE—

“Saihara-kun.” Akamatsu calls, cutting through the chaos, and she’s kind as ever. Gracious as ever. Even now, she looks so lovely. “Don’t be scared of the truth. What did you realize? Please, for everyone’s sake, don’t turn away… face the truth that only you know.”

His throat is still closed up and he shuts his eyes as well, grip tightening at the front of his jacket as he takes frenzied spurts of uneven breaths. He thinks he might be hyperventilating and it would be mortifying if his panic wasn’t justified. He doesn’t think anyone else can tell.

They might think his guilt is driving him static, but it’s not his guilt, it’s not his guilt, or is it? Is it? Is it? Is it his fault? It’s his fault, isn’t it?

(Be strong. Be brave. Fortify.)

Akamatsu’s voice remains calm. It’s almost ironic that she’s the one calming him down, when she’s the one who had bashed Amami’s skull in and it’s all coming together in Saihara’s mind.

“I believe in you. I’m giving you my wish, so protect everyone. No matter what.” Akamatsu says, and when he opens his eyes, he fights for the truth he despises.

 _She must have had a reason_ , he thinks in cold, cold clarity. _She must have been trying to save us somehow. That’s the Akamatsu I know._

He doesn’t remind himself that he barely knows her at all.

(No, he loves her, he has to, why else would he have been so blind? Did she love him, too? Did she want to spare him the pain or was she tricking him this whole time, did she trust him at all like he trusted her, wholeheartedly, wholeheartedly, with the whole of his heart, he loved her, but does he still love her, he doesn’t know. He just doesn’t know.)

His voice returns with a sad vigor, an eloquence that’s running on adrenaline alone and a mind knowing that revealing the truth might break them all but he’s not going to lose sight of what it takes to survive.

(Is it wrong to love her like this, is it wrong to want to take a bullet for a girl like this, but she’s Akamatsu Kaede, she’s the first, she’s radiant, she’s a star, she’s an angel, she killed an innocent, she’s so lovely, she spilled blood on the floor, she’s a murderer, but is it wrong to love a murderer still?)

He promises Akamatsu he will live.

(He loves her, then.)

When she’s dragged away in a collared chain, he’s never felt more like screaming his lungs empty, but he knows there is no saving her now.

(He loves her, still.)

Akamatsu dies, and he briefly believes that if she didn’t grant him her will, he would never have been able to go on.

 

* * *

 

Toujou is comfort. Toujou is care.

“Saihara-kun,” she greets after he’s peeled off his cap with the memory of Akamatsu still thrumming heavily in his veins. Her gloved hand settles on the table beside him and she slides him a plate of food for breakfast. “If you require any assistance at all, I would be most happy to help. Please do keep that in mind.”

Toujou is second.

Toujou is second, and Saihara is so very fragile.

(Don’t break, don’t break, this isn’t what Akamatsu would have wanted. Don’t break.)

She sits with him over tea and he feels the cracks in his heart starting to mend. Not entirely, no, it’s far, far too soon for that, but — but Toujou is so patient and caring that he can’t help but want to spill his soul to her, knowing that she’d keep it safe. She makes him feel secure.

(He hopes she can keep him close, he thinks, because he doesn’t know when he’ll shatter.)

She holds a regality about her, but she is humble, as well. Keen to serve, but not overbearing, Toujou is a pillar of support that Saihara is quick to attach to. Embarrassingly quick, he muses to himself while watching the awe fill her usually stony expression upon entrance to her talent lab.

Her smile, albeit a fleeting, transient spectacle, is precious. Desired in its rarity, every time it graces her face, Saihara feels as though he’s been momentarily stunned.

Toujou is incredibly beautiful.

He likes her in an even quieter way than he did Akamatsu, though. A more hesitant way.

(Toujou, Toujou, Toujou, don’t break him, he begs silently, not like she did. Don’t be Akamatsu, he won’t be able to take it. As long as she isn’t Akamatsu, he will heal. He knows he will. He has to.)

He flusters less around Toujou. She keeps him steady. His posture pulls his spine upright, standing tall around her. He wants her to see him as an equal, even just a little.

(She’s not Akamatsu.)

“Are you alright?” Toujou asks, and she carries herself so well. So closed, so put together. She must have tried to remain as muted as possible, but to Saihara, she had always been standing out strong. “You have been looking into space for a while, Saihara-kun. If there is anything you lack, please remember you can always make a request. I am here for you.”

“Oh, it’s… nothing,” he smiles. “But thank you. You’re very kind, Toujou-san.”

She shakes her head. “It is my duty, after all.”

When she turns to head back to her tasks, he wishes she would turn back around, but he doesn’t voice this aloud. Simply admires how she works with a purpose, always. Every step of the way, she is confident and aimed and true. She possesses qualities like that he envies, but again, doesn’t say out loud.

His feelings regarding Toujou are complex.

(Is she not like Akamatsu like he wants to believe or does he see too much of Akamatsu in her to differentiate the two?)

Simply put, he’s just not sure if it’s his instinctual reaction to (love her, love her, love her) try and fill the gaping hole in his chest or if it’s because she’s endlessly considerate, always listening to his needs. Ever attentive, able to soothe his agitations.

(Is he simply in love with the thought of kindness? Is he so deprived of it, will his days be consumed with love of kindness – the love of a concept instead of a person – is that okay? Is that okay? That’s not okay, is it?)

She’s just amazing. She is amazing.

Toujou is such a beautiful being of grace and elegance and reliability and skill. She’s so skilled.

She doesn’t help him forget Akamatsu, but she sits by his side when he’s finding it hard to breathe, and she pours him another cup of tea, and she reminds him to eat. She diligently sweeps across the cafeteria floor and the way her long layered skirt follows behind her is mesmerizing in itself.

A dance, it’s like a dance. As always, again, her movements are carried with a purpose. She has poise. She has control.

She’s almost too good to be true.

(She is not Akamatsu, but maybe she’s an angel, too.)

Every single day, she offers to do everything she can, whether that’s cooking or cleaning or laundry or catching Ouma in his schemes or taking a contented stroll around the academy to ease off some tension. She is impossibly attuned to people’s needs. Impossibly capable of satisfying them.

 _Selfless devotion_ , she calls it.

He thinks she is absolutely brilliant.

It’s a thought that lingers in his mind always, but it only amplifies when he sees her stationed outside the dormitory, waiting to serve. He’s almost envious of their classmates for having the courage to ask her to do so much for them, because he often fears taking advantage of her sweet soul, but Toujou constantly reassures him that she’s quite happy to help.

Selfless, selfless devotion.

She’s like nothing he’s ever seen before. So amazing and so committed to her every task. Incredibly deft, observant, accommodating. Near perfect, if he ever knew anyone close to the definition of the word.

And the perfect killer for a perfect crime.

(Almost too good–)

One so convoluted that Saihara barely has time to let the dread seep in when he realizes, and by then, it’s already too late.

She’s — she’s convincing, too.

(She’s always been almost too good–)

Her expressions — calculated and brave in nature.

Words — meticulous. Fortified with emotional traps. There are lies. There is guilt. She remains unwavering.

(– to be true.)

She knows how to twist vines over their eyes and their hearts. Toujou knows how to draw them in, into _selfless devotion_ to _her_ , because how could they stand by and let her die? How could they let her, even after knowing she planned to get them all killed, when she has such grand shoes to fill?

Calculated. She’s calculated.

(She’s perfect, she’s too perfect, why didn’t he question it? Why does he still hesitate to doubt?)

She knows what she’s done to them, and she might not be as remorseful as she’s led them to believe.

(Why doesn’t he doubt more, find distrust, so many people here are so filled to the brim with distrust, so why?)

She might have led them all along in her selfish, singular motive to kill them all but Saihara willingly lets that soar over him and pleads to fate, to destiny, to anyone listening, for her to survive.

(Why?)

When Toujou starts sprinting, trying desperately to outrun death, Saihara can hardly watch. A woman — no, a girl, she’s only ever been a girl who had to grow up far too quickly — so terrified at the thought of disappointing her people, of failing a duty far too enormous for her shoulders is having her dignity cut to shreds and it hurts.

It hurts, and what hurts even more is knowing that she had been so blinded by her desperation that she had to kill for it. Lose her life for it.

Toujou dies fighting, and Saihara is haunted by her screams, haunted by the truth he so desperately tried to find, and thinks that he should have gone in her place.

 

* * *

 

Shinguuji intrigues him.

“Saihara-kun,” his voice is a crawling murmur, and Saihara blinks up at him. He has the same unsettling disposition and otherworldly look about him as always, and Saihara gestures tiredly for him to continue. “Shall we spend some time together? You don’t seem to be looking so well.”

Shinguuji is third.

Somehow. Unwittingly and foolishly, third.

“After that execution, I cannot say that I am surprised,” Shinguuji goes on to say, embracing himself with long spindly fingers, eyelids fluttering shut. “Toujou-san was truly an exceptional visage of beauty even in her final moments… yes, how thoroughly wrought with agony it was, her pathetic attempts to defy fate crushed by the very hand that feeds… aah, and her cold spirit of sacrifice! How wretched! How truly exemplary and horrid but so very _beautiful_! I have never seen anything like it!”

(He’s not like them. He’s not like anyone. He’s different. He will be different. Saihara will banish kindness for this difference.)

He might have regretted it, but he’s pleasantly surprised by the company Shinguuji brings, so caught up in his passion and his mind that the rest of the world almost falls away. Not quite, but almost.

Shinguuji is inquisitive, always, and admiring, always, and off in his own head, always. Saihara finds that so very strange yet so very intriguing.

He makes Saihara feel as though he’s always a little on the edge of something dangerous when he’s around — he lacks Toujou’s sweet comfort and Akamatsu’s bouncy nature, but he’s enthralling, educated, thrillingly enigmatic. Difficult to place. To understand.

Saihara is a detective and Shinguuji is a mystery, and that’s how he gets to him.

(Get him. Get him. Finish him. Talk until the hours dry up. He needs to get away from it all. He needs a hit, and Shinguuji can pull him in and keep pulling, he doesn’t think he’d mind.)

(Hush, hush. Even if he got killed, he doesn’t think he’d mind.)

Yes, that is everything he is, an intricate, intellectually stimulating mystery that the detective approaches in curiosity, and finds himself drawn further and further in without quite knowing how until he can’t stop coming back.

With his voice like an endless trickling river, Shinguuji very meticulously blocks out the screams in Saihara’s brain with his latest musings, and teachings about his craft.

(It’s like he knows just what he’s doing to him.)

He can dissect Saihara’s thoughts with his eyes alone. He doesn’t need Saihara to tell him anything, he doesn’t expect the detective to pour his heart out. Conversation is easy. Shinguuji speaks with consideration, as if counting every word. As if not counting any of them at all.

He is interesting. Distracting.

(That’s all that matters, right? Finding a distraction. Forgetting is impossible. Distractions are easy.)

They talk and talk and talk until Saihara can imagine a world where all of the killing game is drowned out — if only for a moment. It’s dangerous to lose his mind to a fantasy away from reality, but time with Shinguuji passes just so.

He learns many things about the world that he can’t yet experience, but is now itching to learn. He’d like to drown in it if he could. Forget about all his responsibilities and stay in this lucid dream, lucid distraction, lucid nightmare.

Saihara isn’t stupid, though.

He’s logical. Cautious. He’s learnt his lesson about trusting people here.

(This isn’t what Akamatsu wanted. This isn’t what Toujou fought for.)

Truthfully, Saihara can sense something beyond Shinguuji’s masked expression. Something sinister flickering, something strong and lethal, perhaps, but he finds he doesn’t care, anymore.

If he can forget, then he can be at peace, and Shinguuji’s careful drawl is all he needs to lose himself. Forget, forget, forget. Replace his memories, the worst of them, with drivel. The world is such a devastating place, and yet he learns that there is the loveliest things in the most unlikely of places.

(One might call it beautiful.)

All the wondrous, curious information, he wants to learn it all.

He wants to know if Shinguuji will ever truly lose his composure, and would he ever allow another person to witness that side of him should it emerge? Even alone with him, he’s always managed to keep a safe distance, as far as Saihara can tell.

He wants to know why every time Shinguuji speaks about matters of the heart, he seems more gleeful and distanced than ever, as though he knows love so thoroughly. So intimately. So much more than Saihara will ever hope to know.

And Saihara, who is unfortunately envious of that gaze, wants to learn why Shinguuji – ardent lover of the beauty of humanity as he claims to be – will never look at him with any more fondness than he would a specimen on an operating table.

Oh, he learns, and then finds he doesn’t want to know, anymore.

The doorway to discovery should have remained closed, and he knows that, but he can’t help his heart from recoiling in shock, even when he has to avert his gaze in revulsion. In horror. In disgust.

(It isn’t beautiful. It’s an escape from reality. It’s a refusal to accept the truth.)

He wishes he could hate Shinguuji for what he is, but he can’t.

“Apologize,” Shinguuji begs, and it falls into a mindless chant, “Apologize, apologize, apologize,” and Saihara doesn’t know who he’s demanding an apology from but he can’t bring himself to hate him still.

(Shinguuji says he’s come to terms with death, that his life has become beautiful again, but what kind of person does this – what kind of person looks at this meltdown of grief and pain and torture and flourishes in it? What kind of person rips their own soul in two and calls that beautiful?)

He’s just shocked.

Appalled, maybe, but deep down, he can see that the abhorrent Shinguuji is so heavily damaged as a human being that he can barely be considered human at all, anymore. Only a monster, groomed by circumstance, blinded by everlasting grief.

So he doesn’t hate him, no. His feelings just evaporate into a numb frustration. A hollow detestation. A severed communication.

He feels nothing. He doesn’t care.

(Actually, he’s kind of repulsive. Aren’t they all, somehow? When were killers ever beautiful?)

He wants this to be over already.

(It’s the first time so far he’s wanted someone to die and he hates himself for it.)

Shinguuji dies, and Saihara feels everything he’s been trying to avoid choke him, overwhelm him, and suddenly he’s feeling far too much yet also far too little.

 

* * *

 

Gokuhara has always had a soft place in his heart.

“Saihara-kun?” He asks, eyes wide and imploring. His voice remains the whisper it had been while he had carried a sleeping Yumeno back to the dorms, and now looking at him, in the moonlight, Saihara wishes he had the guts to ask for the same. “Is everything okay?”

Gokuhara is fourth.

(Not again. Saihara is not strong enough to do this again.)

It’s fast, almost instinctual how fast his heart melts for Gokuhara Gonta, and he thinks it might be because he’s so disgusted in himself that he yearns for some sort of reprieve. Gokuhara is looking at him with such worried eyes. Saihara wants nothing more than to lean into him and be encased in his warm, strong arms, and forget the world again.

Forget Shinguuji ever existed, even as the movement of red lips flickers disdainfully in the corner of his mind. Forget how he slit throats for something brainsick, how both Chabashira and Angie had laid crumpled and bleeding out because of his convoluted devices.

Forget about Toujou, the way she fell so gracelessly from the drastic heights she had clambered up towards – how she fell from salvation, fell beyond saving. Forget how she murdered Hoshi in cold blood and tried to have them all executed for her crime, just as though they owed her that much. Forget that maybe they did.

Forget about Akamatsu and how he had failed her. How she had only one dying wish and he failed her. Forget how she stared at Amami’s corpse, like she couldn’t believe someone would have done this to him, like she didn’t know she was the one that had done it. He’s still failing her.

(He’s a failure and Gokuhara isn’t, so why should he give kindness another chance? Why should he ruin something again? It’s always his fault, it’s his fault and he hasn’t earned this, he has to go, he has to go right now, before he messes something up again completely beyond repair and–)

Gokuhara continues to look concerned as he reaches out for Saihara like he’s trying to coax a scared animal forward. He’s always been so empathetic. “Feeling bad? Can Gonta help?”

Saihara doesn’t want to fall for him.

He’s starting to become too broken for someone so whole.

(Gokuhara should step away. Saihara knows he won’t.)

(Saihara knows this is a terrible idea.)

 _Just, everyone falls a little in love with him, it’s only natural,_ Saihara thinks. He hates it. He needs someone to reassure him, he needs a supportive hand, and Gokuhara is right there. Gokuhara, looming solid and sturdy, is right there.

He shouldn’t go near him, he shouldn’t take advantage of his absolute kindness when he has been so weak to the notion of kindness before, but he does.

“Wanna talk about it?” Gokuhara asks, sitting Saihara down on the stairs in the courtyard. Bittersweet, Saihara wishes Momota and Harukawa were here to stop him. Save him. He doesn’t know which one fit better.

They’re sleeping soundly though, and he isn’t going to rouse them from much needed slumber.

(He could run right now. If he knocks, Momota will answer. Harukawa, it’s likely she’s not sleeping at all. He could find them. He could. But he shouldn’t bother them. He shouldn’t disrupt either of them. He shouldn’t, because all he’s doing is overthinking again and again and again and–)

Gokuhara’s palm is warm and solid on his shoulder, bringing him back to earth. “Gonta might not understand completely, but am willing to try. Just nod if you want Gonta to start.”

He’s simply so gentle, so eager to please and so willing to sacrifice his time and energy for other people. Willing to drop everything to lend a hand. So much wonder. So much care.

Saihara doesn’t realize he’s nodding until Gokuhara’s eyes widen behind his glasses.

From the beginning, he’s always been kind and generous, and the sweetest gentleman Saihara thinks he has ever had the pleasure of meeting. The loveliest boy he will ever have the chance to meet. He might be the only thing in this moment of tenderness keeping Saihara from falling apart.

“Ah. Then. Okay! Gonta isn’t smart so he doesn’t know what he should start with but. Um. Sorry about,” Gokuhara stumbles a bit. Taking a guess. Treading water. “What happened with Shinguuji-kun. Earlier.”

 _Good riddance._ Saihara thinks spitefully.

“It’s okay.” He says in place of that. “Let’s just… move on for now.”

“Right! Okay! Though Gonta hopes, um,” Gokuhara twiddles his thumbs and Saihara withholds the urge to rest his hand over them. Reassure him that he has no need to fidget, that Saihara will listen to anything he has to say. Gokuhara smiles, an ephemeral smile that’s gone before Saihara can admire it fully, before he looks up at the sky. “Gonta hopes that our friends are in a good place. Even though they did bad things, ‘cause. You know, in the animal kingdom, animals kill each other to survive. So Gonta thinks this similar.”

“...yeah, I think you’re right.” Saihara agrees, ignoring the heaviness coiling in his stomach. Thinking about the game makes him want to retch. He soldiers on. “Did Shinguuji-kun ever tell you about the experiment with the bugs in a jar?”

Gokuhara looks sad and Saihara regrets speaking.

“Like Gonta said,” the entomologist answers quietly. “Sometimes animals kill each other to survive. And bugs… no different. They get scared just like everybody else. In jar, with no escape, surrounded and feeling trapped… they do what they need to survive.”

“Are we doing what we need to survive?” Saihara asks him, and everything suddenly starts spilling out. Later he’d say it was late, and he couldn’t help it, and it was all boiling beneath the surface, waiting to overflow. Later, Gokuhara would say he’s glad Saihara trusted him enough to spill. Saihara doesn’t know if it was trust or desperation.

“Is all of this – being suspicious of every move people make, unable to trust the people around us, preparing to die if it came to it, plotting to kill and then sending killers to their executions, and convicting our _classmates_ , our _friends_ , to such extreme punishments, just, is that what it takes to survive? If that’s what survival is, then– then, I don’t know how much longer I want to–”

“It’s okay,” Gokuhara says. “To be scared, Saihara-kun.”

Saihara can barely bite back a sob when he collapses into Gokuhara’s embrace and Gokuhara holds him tight and rubs his back.

He needs this. More than anything, he needs this.

Gokuhara smells like nature, rich and earthy and all-encompassing, and Saihara wants to be close to him for as much as he possibly can. He is too weak to kindness, to the empathy that could go to anyone and in the end, he thinks he doesn’t care if Gokuhara treats everyone the same.

Here, it is just the two of them, and Saihara feels like he matters and that Gokuhara will keep him safe, and that is enough.

“Do gentlemen get scared?” Saihara asks, aiming for something lighthearted, aiming for something that won’t make Gokuhara see him as the pathetic, snivelling mess he’s become.

“All gentlemen do,” Gokuhara replies. He hugs him tighter, and Saihara’s heart hurts. Maybe they both needed this. Maybe they both felt equally lost and alone as their numbers were dwindling, and even though Saihara has his friends, he’d never muster the courage to hug them in these tense times, he thinks.

(Where’s his strength? His bravery? His fortitude?)

It’s a sad truth he doesn’t dwell on.

Instead, he silently muses that Gokuhara’s grip is so strong, so tight, that he could easily crush Saihara right then and there if he willed it.

Ridiculous, nonsensical thought as it was.

Gokuhara would never, ever, genuinely, even hurt a fly.

Never, ever.

Ever.

But then he killed Iruma Miu.

Under Ouma’s careful instructions, he —

(Strength! Bravery! Fortitude!)

Saihara feels sick.

Gokuhara is looking at him with such perplexed and confused eyes, such a helplessness to them as he pleads innocent, and Momota’s voice is ringing in his ear but he knows Gokuhara is the culprit.

Even if Gokuhara doesn’t.

When he has to explain, step by step, the incident of the murder to the aghast boy who committed it, it’s almost more than Saihara can physically handle.

Gokuhara does not defend himself.

Saihara feels sick.

Ouma is smiling. And shouting. And crying. And smiling. And laughing. And crying.

As his faces keep changing, he fades into white noise as Saihara watches Gokuhara admit defeat with a resignation that should never have crossed his broad shoulders.

Somewhere, deep down, as much as Saihara loathes to admit it — Gokuhara is accepting the truth as fact, and just thinking about it makes Saihara want to demand the entomologist come and snap his neck too, so he doesn’t have to deal with all of this.

He doesn’t.

Gokuhara is Iruma Miu’s murderer and that is fact.

Overwhelming fact.

It cannot be overruled.

It’s another one of those twisted, ridiculous truths that hit him hard. Gokuhara knows that under the circumstances outlined, he would have killed Iruma Miu anyway. It’s one of the worst realizations to have, but knowing the truth about the outside world, dear Gokuhara would have done anything to save them from it and if it was murder, it was murder.

He doesn’t run from that. He believes in Saihara’s judgment and doesn’t run from that.

Gokuhara dies, and when Saihara returns to his room, he can’t stop crying until he’s all out of tears and thinking with an aching numbness about the cruel world he’s been left in.

 

* * *

 

Momota is his best friend.

“Sorry, Shuuichi,” he mutters, turning stiffly away and trudging off. Away from Saihara, who had always been able to rely on him for support. “Can’t talk right now.”

 _Back off, back off, back off._ He can read Momota like a book. It hurts, even though it’s hardly the worst thing that’s happened to him. It just. He’s just. It’s terrifying to think about how easy it would be to lose someone here. For Momota of all people to turn away from him – Saihara doesn’t know how to take it.

He had never walked away from Saihara before. Even leading him forwards, Momota would always turn to look back at him, grinning all the while.

Momota is fifth.

Momota shouldn’t have been fifth.

( _Come back,_ Saihara pleads. _Look. The stars are out. We can train as long as you want. I’m sorry, I only did what I had to do. Come back. We’re alive. Come back._ )

After Gokuhara’s death, their argument evolves into an unheard of rift that grows rapidly between them, but Saihara’s foolish heart still yearns to be with him and talk to him just like they used to — to convince himself that they weren’t going to lose all they had to a single, terrible disagreement.

(He remembers the sight of blood dripping like it isn’t commonplace here, in this awful, awful place.)

He wants to be there for him, like Momota has been there for him time and time again.

No, even if it’s just to convince himself that Momota is okay. He has to be okay. He can’t lose him now. No matter what comes between them, he cannot lose him now.

Saihara is frankly terrified that he might.

Coughing up blood is never a good sign, but it’s just like Momota to adamantly reassure everyone that he’s fine. He’s always been fine. He’s never been worse for wear, because he’s Momota Kaito, Luminary of the Stars, and he’s always fine, isn’t he?

For someone who prides himself on being relied on, Momota is awfully bad at relying on other people when he needs it most.

Saihara wishes he could help. Wishes he could reach out knowing Momota would take his hand, and they would tease each other like they always have – but Momota’s acting like this battle against Monokuma is the last he’ll fight before he dies, and Saihara is terrified.

The prospect of losing Momota after all this time is terrifying.

Momota has always been there for him, always a slam of energy that kept Saihara jovial and their banter was what brightened Saihara’s days. He doesn’t know how he’d have gotten this far without Momota’s antics, and he doesn’t know now how he can go without them. It’s almost as though he had relied on Momota as a prime source of happiness and security and now he’s just not around and he keeps looking over to ask what he thinks, only to find he’s talking to empty air.

It’s his absence that makes Saihara want to claw out his hair and even Harukawa isn’t enough of a comfort when usually her blunt remarks bring him to attention immediately.

But what Harukawa wants is for them to bridge their differences, and Momota remains stubbornly distanced. Ouma takes Momota hostage, and then Saihara fears even more.

The day and the night all drag on, slower and slower, like an inescapable haze, and Saihara is exhausted. Every hour feels the same, blending into the last. Saihara wishes time would rewind, wishes he could have met everyone under different circumstances, wishes he had known just how much Momota meant to him when they still had time.

He needs time.

Looking out the window, Saihara is lost in the stars that Momota showed him and lost again now that Momota isn’t here to point them out. He misses the way he grins, the unwavering belief in people that held the very fabric of his being together.

He had always believed in Saihara, until he didn’t.

Saihara has had other friends before, but they were never best friends – his friends simply always had better friends and he was fine with that – not like he was with Momota (and Harukawa by extension. Bringing Harukawa was another reason to remember the extent of goodness in Momota’s heart).

And Saihara has read enough novels to know that “you only love them when you’ve lost them” is a sordid cliché, but he’s never felt closer to the notion than he has after Momota left him cold.

(Does he love him? God, he might. It wouldn’t matter. He’s had that crisis before. He knows to expect nothing, anyway.)

(Does he love him? God, he really might.)

He knows him well enough to fantasize overcoming their differences, fantasize Momota breaking free from the hangar bathroom and pulling him safe into his arms – but it’s impossible. He knows it’s impossible.

Even if they make up, Momota has bigger and better things to look to, and Saihara is not one of them.

Saihara tosses himself through this mentality over and over, trying not to think about how Momota’s absence left him feeling directionless and alone, and even reminding himself of Momota’s exclamations to take care of himself, Saihara can barely leave his bed.

It’s just so much to face on his own, and even though he knows he has Harukawa, Yumeno, Kiibo and Shirogane there physically, he’s never felt more unsure of himself without Momota’s encouragement spurring him on.

Their jokes, their laughter, all hardened under the heightened stakes of the killing game.

Under Ouma Kokichi’s games.

(Something feels off. He doesn’t trust himself to follow his gut, though. That sort of intuition is for heroes, and Saihara isn’t one.)

He wishes he could’ve at least gotten one of Momota’s jackets so it would feel like he was right there with him though, holding onto him as he shakes himself dry of tears he can no longer cry and calming the sickness that churns in his stomach again; every time he goes to think about what’s happened so far, it’s a cycle he can’t escape.

The more Saihara turns it over, the more he loathes not being able to do anything about this helpless situation they’ve been caught in, and he starts wishing he could just wear Momota’s confidence like his jacket he still yearns to have.

Draped over his shoulder, like Momota’s arm often lands, strong and sure. The true type of hero, the one that protects others, that’s the type of person Momota is.

Saihara needs that back. He can’t feel any more vulnerable. He doesn’t have a shell to crawl back into. He doesn’t have an encouraging smile, a secure helping hand, a wild distraction or a surprising gentleness to fall back upon, anymore.

Fixating on that feeling of wanting to be being protected, however, Saihara realizes he’s missed something dire about Momota and that is – no matter how much he declares it – Momota Kaito is not invincible.

Seeing that familiar sleeve in the hydraulic press brings him to a screeching halt.

Desperately searching for the truth in the middle of Ouma and Momota’s lies does the same.

He’s terrified to think Momota might be gone. To even entertain the thought, it makes him want to personally curl up and never see the light of day again, but adrenaline pushes him forward and though he can barely keep up with what he’s saying, the class trial for Momota Kaito or Ouma Kokichi or Momota Kaito or Ouma Kokichi goes on.

As it turns out.

(He should have followed his gut, he should have done what heroes do, why did he wait, why did he wait, what was he doing feeling sorry for himself when both of them were dying, dying, dying–)

Ouma is dead. Saihara isn’t relieved.

Momota is alive. Saihara isn’t relieved.

He doesn’t feel anything.

Momota may be alive, but not for long and he knows this.

He knows this.

He watches Harukawa cry, tears streaming down her face as her hair flies viciously with her every movement and he knows this.

His hand reaches shakily towards Momota as his best friend shoots him one last thumbs up. It would be touchingly heroic if his clothes weren’t already splattered with blood – it’s trickling ugly down Momota’s chin and Saihara forgets to breathe. It’s been a long time since he stopped breathing like this, but now he wonders how he had been so strong in the first place.

(Heroes shouldn’t be the ones that have to die.)

He’s not sure how long his lungs stall when Momota goes.

Not sure if he wants to breathe again.

Momota dies smiling, and Saihara feels his last smile die with him.

 

* * *

 

Saihara doesn’t know how he has any feelings left to cry at all, at this point.

He cries, he screams, he cries, but none of it comes to surface.

The school starts falling to ruins and all that fills Saihara’s heart is the desperation to end this once and for all.

It feels empty.

 

* * *

 

Shirogane is his equal.

An everyday girl, stuck in a place where she has no business being. Wide-eyed, terrified innocence.

She is not sixth.

She can’t be.

He won’t fall for her, he thinks. He won’t fall for anyone anymore. He’s done. It’s over.

He can’t let his fickle heart be swayed again.

But Shirogane smiles at him like she understands.

All the pain, all the turmoil, all the rivulets of fear pulsing through his veins, drenching his ever broken heart — she looks at him with adoring eyes, as though the two of them were the only people in the world that shared this feeling.

 _Maybe she understands_ , he thinks.

Maybe because she’s just like him, an ordinary person forced into extraordinary circumstances; maybe she understands.

“Plainly paired,” she had once called them. She had touched their shoulders together and giggled, murmuring something about not being underestimated just because they were both plain. She stands beside him, holding her hand to her chest with a nervousness he recognizes, and he resists the urge to pat her shoulder or offer her any platitudes (like Momota would have, like Akamatsu would have, but ghosts don’t pass through his lips and they never will).

She looks at him with the saddest eyes, and even in this rumbling, roaring world, her dewy expression tugs his focus away, for a moment. Only a moment.

“Saihara-kun. It’s going to be alright,” Shirogane tells him. He nods weakly back at her. “No,” she insists, quickly stepping forward. “I know it’s going to be alright. So investigate to your heart’s content! Be the detective you were always meant to be!”

It’s a little jarring to hear her faith in him as a detective, he muses, because he’d still hardly call himself one, but he appreciates the sentiment. With Yumeno oddly energized and off on exploration, Harukawa stalking around purposefully and Kiibo holding off the school’s mass destruction – Shirogane is a welcome relief from it all. A familiar, unchanging, ordinary thing.

He finds that oddly comforting.

Maybe she understands.

He’s wrong.

Terribly wrong.

Almost too suddenly, she’s grinning from the podium, hands on her hips. Her eyes flash a brilliant, chilling blue, and her knowing smile strikes his chest like a dagger. All that’s playing through his mind is _Akamatsu wasn’t a killer, Akamatsu wasn’t a killer, maybe there’s a chance that none of them were killers at all –_

Shirogane crushes that plea with one fell swoop.

“Sweet Saihara loved all the killers, you know! His favorite characters were all killers, one could say that was his type!” She laughs heartily, blue eyes gleaming before she’s pulling on another disguise, one of a tall blond man in glasses, staring him down. “Tch. Isn’t that disgusting?”

She changes again, to a snivelling nurse. “B-but with love, anything is p-possible, you know?”

Then she’s Enoshima, with a mean look and a sharp flick of her tongue. “And he fell for every killer there was. What a devastatingly despairing turn of events!”

“What do you mean by that?” Yumeno asks fearfully. Saihara wishes she didn’t have to listen to this.

“Simple! He had a killer heart – he’s always _loved_ the killers,” Shirogane grins and grins and grins. “Loved them so much he wanted to be one! At least, the _real_ Saihara did,” and grins and grins and grins, “After all, he would do anything to be in the show stopping, despair-inducing _Danganronpa_!”

“That’s not true!” Kiibo protests, loud and bold, like he knows for sure. Like that video of a different Saihara salivating over the thought of _Danganronpa_ was nothing. “Saihara-kun isn’t like that!”

“That’s right, Saihara isn’t that kind of person,” Harukawa claims with such a confidence that Saihara almost wilts on the spot.

“Is that so?” Now Shirogane’s a shark-toothed guy in a boiler suit, “Ya know it isn’t that much of a stretch! There are some pretty damn sick people out there, and y’see, he probably didn’t like ‘em just ‘cause they killed a bunch, so cut him some slack, okay? Unless he thought the killing was hot–” She switches into a braided girl in glasses, biting her thumb, “W-which is…! Pretty damn creepy, if y-you ask me…!”

“Saihara isn’t that kind of person,” Yumeno repeats. Her demure brown eyes have grown sharp.

On the other hand, Saihara isn’t so sure. He’s hardly sure who he is, anymore.

Real? Fictional? Why does it matter?

He just wants it to end. He just want it all to end.

Enoshima, twiddling a pigtail between her fingers, sighs. “Well, obviously I can’t blame you for not believing me… and it’s not like Saihara’s got the balls to admit to it… still, whether you like it or not, the world loves despair. All of you and all your friends,” she stands tall, pointing directly at Kiibo, and something clicks in Saihara’s mind. He’s going to end this. “Love! Love despair! Despair is the world! Despair is everlasting! Despair is _Danganronpa_!”

When they unravel all of Shirogane’s lies, letting the web fall so that they hardly know what to believe, Saihara thinks that maybe she did understand, just a little bit, that they were not made for this reality and even so. Everything they had felt was real.

Shirogane dies with a wave, and he lets her.

 

* * *

 

The world burns.

Saihara doesn’t watch.

Sometimes, it really is best to let sleeping dogs lie.

 

* * *

 

As the smoke disperses, Saihara feels relief, and he also feels nothing.

It’s as if his emotions haven’t quite caught up with him yet, and as much of a victory as this feels – choosing his own path, making a decision in strength, in bravery, in fortitude – he is fearful for what is to come. It’s as if he knows it isn’t over.

“Did you really love all the killers?” Harukawa asks him when the air is still. She doesn’t look at him directly but her expression is as neutral as she can make it. He thinks it’s her way of saying she doesn’t blame him.

Saihara shoots her a pained smile anyway. “I don’t want to talk about it yet.”

Yumeno tugs at his jacket. A comforting gesture. “It’s okay… y’know! Maybe that part was written into you, too. So… it’s not your fault, okay?”

Saihara nods, helping her out of the rubble.

He thinks about how he wished to hold Akamatsu’s hand before, how Toujou made him feel safe, how Shinguuji drew him in with his many stories, how Gokuhara made his heart flutter in his strong embrace, how Momota had never let him down when it mattered.

He thinks about Shirogane and how, even in the end, he was looking for the best in her.

Real? Fictional? Does it matter?

Everything he had felt had been real.

“Yeah…” Saihara breathes, wiping his brow with his sleeve. Below them, their hell has been destroyed for good. There is no use lingering. “Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. I think it’s time for us to go.”

 

 


End file.
